British YA Children's Author
Thank you to the wonderful English Department for inviting me to talk to four year groups. What a great way to finish World Book Week and in such a beautiful school. The students were all so attentive and came ready with lots of great questions to ask during the Q&A.
Northwood School World Book Day 2025 – thank you for such a warm welcome and making the day so special! Special thank you to the amazing librarian Anne Underwood, who painted the cover of my book, The Long Weekend, as a surprise!
What an amazing week talking about the PLEASURE and the POWER of reading in lots of great schools this week! We talked about books, shared books, recommended books – it was truly inspiring as an author to help students understand all the many things that reading can do for them!
At the creative writing workshops during the week pupils learnt how to structure stories and had so much fun writing their own stories in different genres and even reading them out to the class. Their imaginations and creativity led their pens across the page. It was wonderful to see so many budding writers!
Huge thank you to all the wonderful school librarians, the English departments, the staff and the students for making each day special.
Thank you Northwood School, St John’s Senior School, St. Michael’s Grammar School, and Bower Park Academy!
Can’t wait until World Book Week 2026! It’s only a shame that every week can’t be World Book Week!
KIMBOLTON SCHOOL – what a beautiful school to finish World Book Week in! Two author talks to Year 8 and to Year 9 in amazing auditoriums, and a lunchtime workshop where creativity was unleashed and poured into writing stories. Big thank you to the English Department and the Librarians for their welcome and for looking after me throughout the day. And thanks to all the students for their insightful, and fun, questions in the Q & As! I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day!
Cumberland Community School was a great school to spend World Book Day in this year. The staff were warm and welcoming, and the students were both attentive and so creative! Stories were written and shared and read aloud – this is what World Book Day is about! The bonus is the dressing up in favourite characters, but the main focus of the school and the students was talking about books and sharing stories!
A wonderful day at Little Ilford School talking to two year groups – Year 9 and Year 10 – about the pleasure and the power of reading! Followed by a creative writing workshop on opening paragraphs for stories in different genres. Horror was popular! Lots of great ideas, creativity and writing from the students! Thank you to the school librarian for organising the events for the day, and the school staff for their warm welcome.
A great afternoon working with some amazing young girls wrapping their pens around words and making the most wonderful, exciting stories! My first time at this fabulous space empowering girls and women. Thank you for the lovely welcome!
I love helping kids find their own unique voices in their story-telling – we even managed to make book covers for the stories in the creative writing session.
This year not only was I invited to The Khalsa Academy in Wolverhampton to give talks and to run creative writing workshops, but I also had the great honour of opening their new school library! Everyone knows how passionate I am about libraries, so it was a wonderful moment for me to cut the ribbon and open the door to so many books and opportunities for the students! Free access to books – what could be better?!
Absolutely delighted that CILIP Youth Libraries Group for the south east chose THAT ASIAN KID as their March title! Here’s what they said when they chose That Asian Kid – “It’s cleverly written, empathetic, and a well-observed novel, fantastic characters who interact beautifully with each other. Although there is plenty of humour, it’s very thought provoking and poignant. Jeevan, the main protagonist, had a genuine voice and was very easy to relate to.”
